UNDER-23S IN LIVE MUTV ACTION ON SUNDAY

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Manchester United face Tottenham in front of the MUTV cameras on Sunday, looking to make it three wins on the bounce in Premier League 2.

The young Reds were beaten at Morecambe in the Papa John's Trophy in midweek but had already guaranteed qualification for the knock-out stages. The return to league action, in the live 17:00 GMT kick-off this weekend, presents the perfect opportunity to show the team's true colours.

Lead coach Neil Wood felt the 4-0 scoreline flattered the League Two team but he will look for a response at the weekend. “We had a large amount of possession for big periods of the game and dominated the play but couldn't break them down,” he explained to us. “The biggest lesson for us is they get one chance, and it's a goal. Two chances - two goals. 

“The disappointing thing for us, which we have to correct and get better at, is not giving soft chances and soft goals away. We've got to get better at making our chances as well but this was great experience as we don't get these games too often against first-teams.”
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The Spurs game should be an entertaining affair, with tweaks in formation an interesting facet of United's play of late at this level. The side even switched to a 3-4-4 formation in the latter stages at Morecambe and the tactical flexibility has helped reap positive results in the last two matches, against Everton and Brighton & Hove Albion.

Arnau Puigmal is one player who embodies this as he is capable of operating at wing-back or in central midfield, and he is showing promising signs of combining well with Hannibal when driving forward, none more so than when bagging the final goal in the 5-2 victory at Brighton and again when unlucky not to open the scoring in the Papa John's Trophy tie. 

“We trialled it [three central defenders] against Everton because obviously Marcos [Rojo] and Brandon [Williams] were down,” Wood told us. “We had some first-team players so we had to change the system a little bit to accommodate them but, when Marcos went off, we flipped it back to 4-3-3. I thought we'd have another go at it in a friendly at The Cliff with all the lads that weren't involved in the FA Youth Cup, so it was a mixture of Under-17s to Under-19s and we played really well.
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